The Importance of Communication in the Age of AI

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David Frum: If we seed our capacity to communicate to technology, we will lose the ability to express ourselves. He says Twitter is an exemplary case of what artificial intelligence in a very broad sense might do. "We're already being conditioned to sort of behave like machines," he says. 'It's hard to know what the truth is'

In the early 1900s, the philosopher Henry Adams expressed concern about the rapid rate of social change ushered in by new technologies, from the railways to the telegraph and ultimately airplanes. If we transpose Adams's concerns onto the power of artificial intelligence--a power whose rate of acceleration would have exceeded his wildest dreams--you might feel a bit uneasy. Listen as philosopher Jacob Howland of UATX speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about why too much leisure is at best a mixed blessing, and how technology can lead to intellectual atrophy. They also speak about the role of AI in education and its implications for that most human of traits: curiosity. Finally, they discuss Howland's biggest concern when it comes to outsourcing our tasks, and our thinking, to machines: that we'll ultimately end up surrendering our own liberty.